Irish fund assets hit €5.6 trillion as Makhlouf flags tech risks
Central Bank of Ireland Governor Gabriel Makhlouf called for heightened operational resilience and genuine substance in fund delegation at the Irish Funds conference on October 1, 2026. The domestic sector now oversees €5.6 trillion in assets.
Tokenisation and third-party vulnerabilities
Ireland hosts €5.6 trillion in investment fund assets as Europe's second-largest fund domicile and a top-three global hub.
Governor Gabriel Makhlouf emphasized that expanding the EU Savings and Investments Union is essential, noting that households currently hold only around a fifth of their wealth in financial assets.
Addressing new market infrastructure, Makhlouf pointed to distributed ledger technology and fund tokenisation, which require tokenised assets and tokenised money alongside safe central bank settlement.
He warned against critical dependencies, stressing that asset managers rely heavily on a small group of cloud and data vendors whose outages could trigger systemic disruptions across markets.
Delegation demands genuine substance
On supervisory policy, Makhlouf affirmed support for cross-border fund delegation but insisted on genuine substance, requiring senior management to possess the authority to challenge delegates.
The Central Bank of Ireland plans to launch a formal consultation on the governance of fund management companies early next year.
This follows recent initiatives to tighten liquidity management practices and a consultation on money market funds after market shocks revealed persistent valuation and liquidity vulnerabilities.
Beyond postbox compliance
Makhlouf rightly identifies third-party tech concentration as a systemic blind spot for the funds industry.
Demanding local substance in delegation puts pressure on firms that treat Dublin as a mere postbox.
The upcoming governance consultation will test whether supervisory rhetoric translates into binding enforcement.